Vocabulary
Birth rates, ageing societies and growth, for Task 1 charts and Task 2 essays. With a practice exercise.
IELTS vocabulary for population is unusual because it is needed in both writing tasks. Academic Task 1 charts regularly show population figures by age or country, and Task 2 asks about ageing societies, falling birth rates and who should pay for pensions.
The groups below cover both: the language of numbers and trends for describing data, and the language of causes and consequences for the essay.
The words
Six groups. Learn one group at a time and write a sentence of your own for each word.
Birth rate: the number of births in a year, relative to the population
Death rate: the number of deaths in a year, relative to the population
Population growth: an increase in the number of people
Overpopulation: more people than an area can support
Demographic change: a change in the structure of a population
An ageing population: one in which the proportion of older people is rising
Life expectancy: how long people live on average
The elderly: older people as a group
Senior citizens: a polite term for older people
The working-age population: people old enough and young enough to work
A pension: money paid regularly to someone who has retired
The retirement age: the age at which people stop working
A labour shortage: too few workers for the jobs available
A dependent: someone supported by others, such as a child or a retired person
A tax burden: the weight of tax on those who pay it
Care homes: places where elderly people live and are looked after
Healthcare costs: the money spent on treatment
Intergenerational: involving different generations
Isolation: being alone and cut off from others
Active ageing: staying involved in work and society in later life
To double: to become twice as large
To account for: to make up a proportion, as in account for 20 percent
The majority: more than half
A proportion: a part of the whole
To be projected to: to be expected to, based on current trends
Population is singular: the population is growing. Say the number of people rather than the population of people, which repeats itself.
The elderly refers to a group and takes a plural verb: the elderly are. Avoid old people in formal writing where you can.
Method
Six ways these words earn marks rather than just filling space.
An ageing population says in three words what many candidates spend a sentence on. It is the key phrase for this whole topic.
You raise the retirement age, place a burden on younger workers, fund pensions and care for the elderly. Birth rates fall or decline, and populations grow or shrink.
Population charts need account for, the majority and a proportion. Projected to is essential when a chart shows future figures.
Is an ageing population a problem or an opportunity? Should the retirement age rise? Who should look after elderly people? These recur regularly in Task 2.
Senior citizens and older people are more appropriate than old people in formal writing. Register is part of Lexical Resource.
An ageing population brings costs, but also experience and a large volunteer workforce. Having vocabulary for both keeps an essay balanced.
Practice
Choose the answer that fits each sentence.
Read the whole sentence before you choose. Several options will be real words, and often more than one will nearly fit.
The test is precision: which word, or which pairing, means exactly what the sentence needs?
1A society in which the proportion of older people is rising has ______.
An ageing population. It is the standard phrase and the centre of most essays on this topic.
2How long people live on average is ______.
Life expectancy. The death rate is the number of deaths in a year, which is a different measure.
3Which is correct?
The population is. Population takes a singular verb, and of people repeats the idea.
4Too few workers for the jobs available is a ______.
Labour shortage. It is a common consequence of an ageing population.
5In 2050, the number of people over 65 is ______ reach 20 percent.
Projected to. It is the correct language for future figures in a Task 1 chart.
6Which is the natural pairing?
Raise. Raise takes an object. Rise does not, so the retirement age rises but a government raises it.
7In 2020, people aged 65 and over ______ 15 percent of the population.
Accounted for. It is the standard way to give a proportion in Task 1.
8Which sentence is more precise?
B. Precise terms and a natural collocation, and it avoids the error less young people, which should be fewer.
That is the commonest vocabulary problem at Band 6, and it is very hard to see in your own writing because each word looks correct on its own.
The complete IELTS course on IELTStestONLINE has video lessons on every question type, many more exercises like this one, and your own support tutor you can ask when an answer does not make sense. Take a look at the complete course
Recognising a word in a multiple choice is not the same as producing it accurately under time.
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Yes. It appears in Academic Task 1 charts and in Task 2 essays about ageing societies, birth rates and pensions.
Singular. The population is growing. Say the number of people rather than the population of people.
A population in which the proportion of older people is increasing, usually because of longer life expectancy and falling birth rates.
Older people, the elderly or senior citizens are more appropriate in formal writing.
Raise needs an object: the government raised the retirement age. Rise does not: the retirement age rose.
Full membership
Technique takes most candidates to about Band 6.5. Past that, the limit is usually the range of language you can use accurately, and knowing where you stand is the first step.
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